French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday questioned the value of U.S. missile defense plans in Europe, but later appeared to step back from his criticism, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Nov. 14).
To the extreme displeasure of Russia, the Bush administration has reached agreements for building a radar base in the Czech Republic and deploying 10 missile interceptors in Poland.
"Deployment of a missile defense system would bring nothing to security in Europe ... it would complicate things, and would make them move backward," Sarkozy said following a meeting in France with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (Angela Charlton, Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, Nov. 14).
On Saturday in Washington, though, Sarkozy said the missile shield "could be a complement against a missile threat coming from elsewhere, for example, Iran," AP reported (Associated Press II/Yahoo!News, Nov. 15).
Medvedev, who recently threatened to deploy short-range missiles near Poland if the United States moved ahead with the missile defenses, also took a more conciliatory tone Saturday, Reuters reported.
"We will not do anything until America does the first step," the Russian president said.
"I think we have a chance to solve the problem through either agreeing on a global (antimissile) system or, as a minimum, to find solution on the existing programs which would suit the Russian Federation," he added.
"(The) first signal we received (from the incoming Barack Obama administration) shows that our partners think about this program rather than plan to simply rubber-stamp it," Medvedev said (Oleg Shchedrov, Reuters/Yahoo!News, Nov. 15).
President-elect Barack Obama has said the missile defense technology must be proven to work before he would sign off on its deployment in Europe. However, his administration would probably continue its current missile defense programs, Time magazine reported.
Two top candidates to lead the Defense Department -- current Defense Secretary Robert Gates and former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig -- both support the effort.
Obama himself has indicated that he saw the need for such technology.
"I actually believe that we need missile defense because of Iran and North Korea and the potential for them to obtain or launch nuclear weapons," he said during the presidential campaign.
Obama might also back the program to show that he is not cowed by threats from Moscow, according to U.S. officials (Mark Thompson, Time, Nov. 16).